Lincoln's Poetry

[Rob Wick]

Illinois State Historian Sam Wheeler wrote his doctoral dissertation on Lincoln's poetry. He places the "Rosa" and "Linnie" poems in the context of Lincoln's view that his early life up to that point had been a failure. Noting that in 1856, Lincoln wrote of his time with Stephen A. Douglas, Wheeler writes, "With his term in Congress no doubt still on his mind seven years after it ended, Lincoln reflected on the disparate paths he and his more successful political rival had traveled thus far in life:
Twenty-two years ago Judge Douglas and I first became acquainted.
We were both young then; he a trifle younger than I. Even then, we
were both ambitious; I, perhaps, quite as much so as he. With me, the
race of ambition has been a failure—a flat failure; with him it has been
one of splendid success. His name fills the nation; and it is not
unknown, even, in foreign lands.
"Lincoln was still searching for the moral of the story a decade after his term in Congress ended. When a young girl asked him for his autograph during his celebrated debates with Douglas, Lincoln not only gave her his signature, but he also scribbled an eight-line poem for his young admirer (Wheeler then reprints the verse)

"While the verses might well-be original, the message was certainly a familiar one: make the most of today because there is no guarantee you will see tomorrow. Like the Roman poets Horace and Virgil, Lincoln was urging young Rosa to embrace carpe diem and “seize the day." Working within the same genre, Lincoln’s verses closely resemble the seventeenth century classic “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” by Robert Herrick:
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.

Sam later writes, "Two days after Lincoln inscribed Rosa’s autograph book, her sister Linnie, worked up the courage to ask Lincoln for his signature. Again, he obliged, but this time, he added a four-line poem bearing a similar message: (He then repeats the verse)

"While Congress had been a flat failure, the four years following his time in the nation’s capitol proved far more excruciating. By the time he composed his autograph verses to Rosa and Linnie, life had confronted him with the message his favorite poem had defined by extremes. Life had indeed taken place along the slender divide separated by “hope and despondency,” “pleasure and pain,” and “sunshine and rain,” it had been punctuated by “smiles and tears,” as well as “the song and the dirge.” If he had any advice to impart on his young admirers, it was to embrace “the blossom of health” before they too were confronted by “the paleness of death.” (Samuel P. Wheeler, Every Spot a Grave; The Poetry of Abraham Lincoln, Ph.D. dissertation, Southern Illinois University, pgs. 320-323)

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Rob